This is what I learned about writing stories:

“A good story contains vivid and living characters. Characters make the story!
The reader should be attracted by the characters as much as by the storyline.
Without conflict, there is no story! So, problems should be created and may come to a crisis, but at the end, it leads to resolutions, this is why a story should move forward with a sequence of events that tell us about the characters and their dynamic situation.”

But theory looks a bit different, once applied!

Because the mind is full of many ideas, we ought to think about why this kind of story? Why this character? What is the purpose of writing a certain story? Where are we leading the Reader?
This is why, there is no educational story which is not instructing and leading to changes that affect our lives and thinking, even Superman, in each story, has a message for children.
Therefore, what is the purpose of writing a story, with all its content and how to put goals that meet the target?

I believe that this is not the way it begins!

An artist has a picture in mind that he wants to exhibit in its artistical way; so much more is the writer or author of any narrative kind, he has the picture in mind. It is after he lays a daft on “paper”, that he should be asking the questions: What, why, how, where and when, then start editing it by modifying the sequence, the reactions, the dialogue among characters, targeting the purpose he has in mind to lead the reader. He does his changes, or fine modifications by enhancing an event or creating an incident that will focus on the purpose. All this is based on what he has discovered in his analysis of the theme and narration.

Why “Stories of Simon”? Why “Simon”? What do we learn from the first story: “That was my Name”? What does “The Wedding in Cana” teach the reader? Why a Project in the mind of Simon, and what does “The fishing Project” teach children, or what does it lead them to.

While talking to an elder, a wise writer, and after I shared with him my purpose in writing the first three stories of “Stories of Simon” series, he asked me a question: “Did you plan this before writing or after you read what you have written?”

That was a heavy question, which I already had asked myself longtime before. So, my quick answer was: “After I’ve written the first “draft”, then I modified it accordingly to clarify my good purpose in the specific story.” I surely did, but it costed me deleting not only words but drawn pictures too. It costed me to re-write some long passages, and change balloons and their contained dialogue.
It was hard, long-suffering, a persistent achievement, but most rewarding and a teaching process.